2007 = Iraq's WORST YEAR. Wow such "progress"!

[LynnTheDem]

Despite all the claims of improvements, 2007 has been the worst year yet in Iraq.

During the surge, the number of Iraqis displaced from their homes quadrupled...over 2.3 million internally displaced persons within Iraq, and over 2.3 million Iraqis who have fled the country.

A recent UNHCR survey of families returning found that less than 18 percent did so by choice. Most came back because they lacked a visa, had run out of money abroad, or were deported.

... attacks against coalition forces number more than 2,000 monthly...

70 percent of Iraqis lack access to safe drinking water, and 43 percent live on less than a dollar a day. The report also states that eight million Iraqis are in need of emergency assistance.

"Iraqis are suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation, healthcare, education, and employment," the report says. "Of the four million Iraqis who are dependent on food assistance, only 60 percent currently have access to rations through the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 percent in 2004."

Child malnutrition rates have increased from 19 percent during the economic sanctions period prior to the invasion, to 28 percent today.

The inflation rate is officially said to be around 70 percent.

According to a recent ABC/BBC poll, 98 percent of Sunnis and 84 percent of Shias in Iraq want all U.S. forces out of the country.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40637

The results of the poll reflect a great degree of dissatisfaction with the US "surge", with a vast majority of respondents considering the move to have made the situation in the country worse rather than better.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6983027.stm

"Progress" rightwingnut-style.

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Good Post, Lynn

In addition, the same troglodytes who keep saying the "surge is working" are looking at 3 month data. These same trolodytes were those saying, not 1 year ago, that the success of the Iraq endeavor couldn't be know for a decade or more.

So, apparently, within one calendar year, the whole situation went from only being able to be judged through a historical lens, to being able to be approved on monthly data.

How convenient.
The Professor

[gratuitous]

2. If this be progress

One wonders what would have qualified as failure or disappointment.

[tridim]

3. Failure would have entailed Bush's ultra-rich friends not making billions of dollars..

from his endless war on terra.

His corporate masters are very happy.

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. Yes, always watch the big picture. If one thing is not happening, is anything else?

And the mass movement of dollars out of our Treasury into corporate hands is a good example. They tried to do the same thing to Social Security, remember?

As is the increasing monopolization of oil resources. Not that anyone anywhere would be happy that oil is at a new record high of $100.00 a barrel. Don't wall streeters make money when that happens? (Those investing, that is?)

It's a sleight-of-hand trick, a smokescreen for their real intent. Which has been amazingly successful. They don't give a shit about Iraqi rebuilding and Iraqi citizens, much less US citizens; they live for domination and profit.

They're businessmen, not politicians. Google "bush failed businesses" to learn more about their profit through destruction tactics. Google "neal bush silverado". Starting to see a trend?

[redqueen]

5. I wish more US citizens were paying as much attention. (nt)

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. I think that many get it, but don't talk about it because they feel helpless.

[redqueen]

8. I would buy that...

if they acted that way. But no... many are still pro-occupation, even when most Iraqis - though they at least don't blame us for all the problems anymore - would still like us to get the hell out... now.

[Strelnikov_]

6. But we stopped them at the Kharkov line

Now if we can clear up that salient around Kursk, it will give us time to regroup.

Ultimate victory is now in sight!!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

9. I shared your excellent OP in another blog and received this response...

"Lets see ABC/BBC now there's a pair of trustworthy news agency. What a joke!!!! They also said what clinton did in the White House was his business nobody elses. They also don't think he lied to a grand jury, ask monica."

He couldn't cite any other sources to refute your information, saying: "Old news friend, hard to find now. I used to read a lot of it, but I just got tired of hearing it's Bush's fault no matter what happens. There is a saying, that it's better to fight the terrorist over there, than here. enough said."

I congratulated him on his inability to think clearly, but chastised him for failing to work Clinton into the reply.

[LynnTheDem]

10. I always ask them about that "fight them there than here" crap;

1. Are you saying terrorists are now too stupid to fight us (again) over here? They can't find America? They aren't already here, planning to strike? Gee, even George W. bUsh says there are al Qaeda ops right here in America. Apparently the 19 criminals who perpetrated the 911 attacks had no problem finding their way to fight us here.

Even rightwingers could work it out that gee, while the US is bogged in Iraq, terrorists would be better off fighting us IN AMERICA! And even rightwingnuts should be able to understand the simple fact that the more "collateral damage" children and women & old folk we slaughter, the more incentive there is to attack us HERE. For generations to come. (Wouldn't YOU, if YOUR country were invaded and YOUR kids killed???)

"It shouldn’t be hard to understand that the responsibility for violence in Iraq – even violence between Iraqis – is blamed on our occupation. It is more accurate to say, “the longer we fight them over there the longer we will be threatened over here.”
-rightwing Ron Paul

2. Are you even slightly aware of the fact Al Qaeda WANTS us over there? That keeping us tied down OVER THERE is bin Laden's stated goal?

3. What "terrorists" are we actually fighting "over there", since even the US military & George W. bUsh have admitted the fact that most the people we are fighting "over there" are pissed off Iraqis, NOT "terrorists", NOT "al Qaeda", NOT "foreign fighters".

Even rightwingers should be capable of figuring out that "better to invade a nation & slaughter their people just to piss them off so they'll want to kill us in return" is pretty deeply stupid foreign policy.

*********

Of course there has never been any cogent response to the above beyond the usual name-calling bullshit. :eyes:

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

11. Great point, I've been saying this for a while

For all the dumb talk about Iraq becoming "safer," we've had our most violent year in 2007 there. Sure, things on the surface have cooled down a bit over the past two months, but that's largely because the pace of killing and violence was impossible to sustain indefinitely-- it's now taking an unsurprising, unavoidable pause, before resuming again.

That's because the underlying problems of Iraq aren't even close to being solved-- terrible infrastructure, a lack of medicines and drinking water, lack of gasoline (in a country with among the world's largest oil reserves), electricity running maybe 1/3 of each day, and political impasses.

Iraq's quandary isn't being helped by the Bush Administration's arrogant attempts to steal Iraq's oil, via production sharing agreements (PSA's) designed to give US and British oil companies 70% of Iraq's petroleum reserves. The Iraqi people would never accept this, and so long as the Bush Administration continues to try to ram this obscenity through Iraq's Parliament, there will never be anything resembling political unity, and there will continue to be violent resistance to US forces. The oil belongs to Iraq's people.